Hemingway faces uphill run in GOP primary

Sunday

Aug 31, 2014 at 2:00 AM

MANCHESTER — Andrew Hemingway's campaign headquarters in an office building in Manchester pays homage to Republicans past and present: The walls are covered with campaign signs for Ronald Reagan, George W. Bush, Mitt Romney and John McCain to name a few.

Rik Stevens

MANCHESTER — Andrew Hemingway's campaign headquarters in an office building in Manchester pays homage to Republicans past and present: The walls are covered with campaign signs for Ronald Reagan, George W. Bush, Mitt Romney and John McCain to name a few.

There aren't any signs for Hemingway, who is nearing the end of a campaign for the party's nomination to try to unseat first-term Democratic Gov. Maggie Hassan.

"They're all out there," he says, jerking his thumb over his shoulder and laughing.

Hemingway must use every resource he can in taking on Walt Havenstein, a former defense industry chief executive officer from Alton who already has been targeted by Democrats looking ahead to November. As of Aug. 20, Havenstein had raised just under $2 million and had $1.3 million to spend while Hemingway had raised about $100,000 and had about $38,000.

Hemingway is undaunted by the lack of money or the backing Havenstein has received from establishment Republicans.

"For something like seven years, six years, I've been here working in the Statehouse, on state issues, building a large grass-roots network of activists," he said. "Activists who help to organize and also vote in Republican primaries. Walt has none of that. Votes are very hard to buy here."

Hemingway, a 32-year-old businessman from Bristol, is the former chairman of the Republican Liberty Caucus and an unabashed tea party candidate who wants to give the free market room to attract business, create jobs and pay the bills. On every issue, he invokes healthy competition as the cure for what he says is ailing the state: over-regulation, an uneven playing field and plain old government meddling.

It borders on animus toward the very body he seeks to join.

"I think our founders hated government," he said. "They built the Constitution to limit government. My desire in being governor is that I think there is a proper balance of government and freedom, and today in New Hampshire we are imbalanced. We have more government than is necessary to ensure our freedoms."

Hemingway can rankle some and made no friends in the Republican Party when, during his 2013 run for the party chairmanship, allies released tax records of his chief opponent, current Chairwoman Jennifer Horn. The records showed a federal tax lien of more than $92,000 against her property for unpaid taxes in 2008 and 2009. Hemingway denied any involvement, but the incident stirred up bad feelings. In an open letter to Republican executive committee members, longtime GOP operative Chris Wood said he was worried Hemingway was too divisive and unable to deliver on promises to modernize the party with technology.

"During the last three years Hemingway has spent much time attacking other Republicans instead of growing our party and drawing distinctions with Democrats," he wrote. "Furthermore, Andrew Hemingway hasn't actually demonstrated a clear ability to be successful implementing or delivering on such promises."

Havenstein, 65, has chosen to spend most of his time and money going after Hassan and rarely mentions Hemingway. During a recent debate, though, it got personal when Hemingway linked Havenstein to fraud at a company he once headed — though the fraud occurred before he took the helm. Havenstein struck a paternal tone, telling Hemingway he was "disappointed" that he had impugned his character.

Hemingway got the entrepreneurial and activist seeds planted early. His architect father was always working at the drafting table in their Plymouth home, and his mother took on part-time cleaning and secretarial jobs to help support four kids.

"From my earliest memories, it was of mom and dad struggling," said Hemingway, a married father of two with No. 3 due in October. "Trying to figure out how to kind of break through. They worked very, very hard. It's a spirit of self-determination. It's that idea of making it, whatever it takes."

As a 20-something, he started his first business, an online service to teach youth coaches, then sold it and started another. He's on his third tech business, an online donation portal for nonprofits and political candidates. He says New Hampshire needs to welcome high-tech businesses by rolling back regulations, including environmental protections, to make the state more attractive. He wants to replace the business profits tax and business enterprise tax with a flat tax that would treat nonprofits and government the same as private-sector businesses.

He'd let the state design its own health care system, opt out of Common Core and push for greater school choice including charters.

Hemingway shrugs off criticism from other Republicans and says he won't change.

"Very rarely do I accept things because that's just the way they are," he said.

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